(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons
by theshippingprince
Summary: "I want to experience it, whatever it is. The real thing. Love," he said. "Even if it was for a short period of time?" she asked. "Even if was the most painful thing in the world." / After not seeing Luna Lovegood for several years, Neville meets her in New York City for Christmas.


Notes: The idea for this story came about for three reasons:

1\. I don't think there's any way that Neville is bad at going down on a girl. (You can tell because of how hard he practiced for the dance. He wants to impress the ladies. That's all.)  
2\. Every Christmas, my dear friend Angie (bleuboxes) writes these deeply sad, horribly painful stories and dedicates them to me. I wanted to get back at her for all the terrible, poignant feelings she's sent my way.  
3\. I am very, very evil (even though I love both Neville and Luna very dearly).

* * *

It had been the way she had worded the letter that had made him believe, beyond a doubt, that everyone was going to be there. Ginny, Harry, Hermione, Ron. It was going to be a reunion. The founders of Dumbledore's Army reunion — although it hadn't said that directly on the letter. A reunion that wasn't starchy, and awkward, where he had to go out and rent a slim fitting, overly tight suit that made his neck itch. One where he didn't have to smile charmingly, watch his ex-classmates drink far too much firewhiskey, and pretend that he had gotten along with Draco Malfoy back at school. One where he could simply be himself, and they could all reminisce on the past, without a thought in the world.

Sure, it was childish but, he had totally been thinking the adult version of a sleepover. But, the mental image was quite wonderful.

They all didn't write to each other as much as they had started out doing anymore. Hermione wrote the most, there had been a time where she had written enough that within one month, he had lined an entire wall in his professor's office with her letters. She had this wonderful, round half-cursive handwriting, and when she was younger she dotted her i's with perfect little circles. As of late, it had gotten a little scratchy, almost verging to the point of being barely readable. But, that was Hermione Granger, after all. She wrote about as fast as her brain thought, and he loved her for it.

Harry hardly wrote. He was a busy man, after all but, he checked in to talk about his sons, his daughter, how they were doing in school, if he was managing well with his students, if he was having a good new year. It was more surface level stuff but, Neville appreciated it nonetheless. It was just calming to hear from a good friend, to hear that he hadn't dropped off the face of the earth just yet.

He hadn't exactly received many letters from Ron. There were just Christmas cards, and thank you cards for gifts. But, he hadn't exactly needed much more than that — he got most of the information from Hermione, all of the information from Hermione. But, that was to be expected. Ron hated writing, he had back when they were all in school, and it had been a hatred that had continued into his adult life.

He wished Ginny wrote more. He wished his eyes got to skim over her faint, curling text, slanted and squished together beyond belief. He wished he'd tell him what jokes she had read in the paper recently that had made her laugh out loud. He wished she would tell him about nothing and everything all at once. It was a selfish wish, he knew that. He knew she was a busy woman with a full fledged quidditch career to uphold but, sometimes he had to want something more. They had been thick as thieves back in school, practically starting their own rebellion, being the Harry, Ron, and Hermione of the school, while the golden trio were off galavanting the countryside. She would always have a place in his heart.

And then, of course, there was Luna.

Luna Lovegood had dropped off the face of the earth for nearly a year. Perhaps it was going up on two years, or a year and three quarters but, it was definitely a lot. Nobody had heard from her. Not Harry or Ginny, who — like the slight mom-friends that they were — kept the closest tabs on her of the group of them. No letters faintly stained with ink in the corners, no letters hiding flowers, pressed flat within the scrawly, lopsided pages of barely legible lettering. It had been a discussion Hermione had written about in her letters, a wondering of where that Loony Lovegood had gone, a curiosity into whether or not she had just off and died somewhere, and if they should go searching for her. Apparently Ron had said that they shouldn't, and after quite the heated argument (according to her letter), she had eventually agreed. Luna could survive in the wilderness, in the wild. She had survived the war, she could survive nature. She could survive anything.

Which, of course, was why when a letter from one Luna Lovegood, in fairly readable blue ink landed on his plate at breakfast one morning, he practically choked on a glass of orange juice. He had always been known to do awkward things, as he was a terribly awkward person and always had been, but drinking a gulp of orange juice, only to spurt it out of his nose in the dining hall, in front of a group of wide-eyed first years who were just begging to make fun of him behind his back, really took the cake. But, he was too in awe of the letter to care.

He had cracked open the wax seal at the back with the end of his fork, and hastily opened the letter, his eyes dancing from word to word, drinking in the information.

_Dear Neville_, it read, _I hope you're well_. _I haven't exactly had the capability to write lately, or read the papers but, I hope you're still alive, and still working at Hogwarts. Otherwise, this letter will truly be going to no-one_, she wrote.

It went on like that for quite awhile but, in a strange way, it was incredibly… Nice. Being let into the mind of a friend, a familiar friend at that, was almost as though his whole soul was relaxing. The whole dining hall seemed to fade away, just for a moment, as his eyes ran down her letters, her words, her sentences. And then—

_I've decided to stay in New York City over Christmas, and New Years. I've rented a little apartment from this muggle and it's very cute but, I was wondering if you'd like to come to the "big apple" as they call it, and spend a few days with me?_

Looking back on it, there really wasn't anything that distinctly said that they were all going to be there. That it was going to be a reunion. Perhaps it was the legibility of her text that made it all seem official, or the loving swirls she had doodled on the edges of the paper. He wasn't sure but, he had believed, beyond a doubt, that they were all going to be there.

Perhaps he had simply been blinded by his heart but, he had already agreed in his mind that he would be there. That he would see her again. That he would ask what she was up to. He simply had to, it wasn't a discussion.

Neville Longbottom was going to spend Christmas and New Years with Luna Lovegood.

* * *

He hadn't apparated, or used a portkey to get to New York City. Even being a professor, such a long distance made him slightly queasy to think about traveling on his shaky magic alone. So, instead, he consulted his wall full of letters from Hermione. In one of her older letters, he had obviously asked her about what it was like to fly in a plane — her descriptions alone made him curious enough to try it, sometime. And it seemed, now was the time to do it.

It was something, he decided, he would not be doing again.

The muggles placed a whole lot of faith into a hunk of metal soaring through the sky. He had been tense the whole ride. There was nothing comforting or enjoyable about the whole venture, he honestly had no idea what Hermione was talking about. But, it was over, the point was that it was over.

He was in New York City.

Engulfed in the freezing temperatures, winds that seeped through his sweaters, and tourists stumbling together in Canada Goose jackets, their gaze permanently directed upwards at the towering buildings. He found himself upon endless, hazy streets that continued into the distance until he couldn't see them anymore, deafened by the endless honking by cars of all different shapes and sizes, bewildered by the lack of rules for crossing said streets. Disgruntled by the piles of garbage bags, the ones that lined the streets waiting patiently for their time to be taken away, overwhelmed by the different shops, restaurants, cafes, diners, each with their own unique, delightful smell cutting through the overwhelming scent of garbage, and the cold, unfeeling faces of the New Yorkers, eyes unfaltering from some far away point they had honed in on what seemed to be years ago. But his general awe was not the point, he was in New York City. He had made it.

It took him awhile to get to Luna's rented apartment after the plane landed. He had opted to try and use the subway, something that confused him beyond belief — there were so many levels worth of trains, and it was hard to know if he was supposed to be going uptown or downtown, whether he should be on the green line or the blue one. He completely, and truly, lost his sense of place, not that he had really had it to begin with. He had asked so many passers by, ones who were reluctant to help him, or simply did not know themselves, that he had started to get self conscious about it. So, by the time he clambered back up onto the surface from the depths of the subway, finally in the right area of Luna's rented apartment, and breathed in the fresh garbage smell, he was glad to have made it.

He was truthfully glad to be breathing in garbage.

Luna had left the glass front door of the apartment building propped open, as she said she would in the letter — rather than buzzing him in. In her letter, she said the muggle system confused her, so she would simply leave it open for him and charm it to remain hidden to anyone who wasn't, well, him. He had laughed aloud when he had read her letter originally but, hadn't exactly thought much about what it really meant: how long she had truthfully been staying in the tiny apartment, hidden in the winding, cobbled streets of New York City.

He hadn't thought about it at all. Perhaps if she had gone to Hermione first, things would have been different. But, it was too late for that now.

The building was old, rustic really. A strange combination of modern aspects — sleek metallic handrails — and scrapped together older elements — the grimy windows, and marble tiling. The windows seemed much more like miniature checkerboards than windows, as though the building itself had once been a warehouse for manufacturing some lost, well, _thing_. It was one of those old buildings that seemed as though it had been there forever. Which, of course, meant that it didn't have an elevator. He cast a quick levitation charm over his suitcase, and climbed the five flights of stairs all the way to the top, huffing and puffing all the way up — 5B, she had said in her letter, that's where she was. The key would be under the mat, if she wasn't already in the apartment when he got there. Halfway up, he was overwhelmed with thankfulness for his magic, because he honestly couldn't imagine what the muggles did, carrying their own groceries, luggage, anything up so many flights of stairs.

The door to 5B was open when he reached the landing of the fifth floor.

Out of habit, he clenched his wand tighter in his hand, ready for anything. He thought briefly about when Luna had been taken off the train in his last year at Hogwarts. He, Ginny, and Luna herself had been sharing a compartment when the attack on the train had gone down. He had been asleep when the train first had come to a jarring halt. Ginny had screamed, all sharp and painful, and he remembered the feeling of her nails digging into his forearm, pleading for him to get up, to run. They were coming, she kept saying, they were coming. Luna had been almost eerily calm, as though she had already accepted her fate. He remembered her placing a hand on his hair, before gently moving it down to his cheek. Her hand felt frozen against his cheek. She hadn't said anything, which he had found odd, as she usually couldn't seem to keep her mouth shut when she had something confusing to say. And then she had been gone, taken away. Ginny had had to hold him back from following her off the ruins of the train. He and Ginny had thought they would never see her again.

He pushed the door open with one hand, wand poised at the ready. It moaned loudly upon opening, and he froze in the doorway.

Luna was standing with her back to him in the tiny, compressed kitchen area of the minuscule apartment. There was steam wafting around her, almost silhouetting her in the hot air. She had pulled her hair out of her face, and tied it up in a haphazard bun atop her head, one that had slipped nearly down to her neck, and let strands of said hair fall all the way down her back in curls and waves. She was dressed in a pair of practically trashed jeans, scuffed with dirt and grime, and what looked to be blood of some sort, with one pant leg slightly longer than the other, torn at an uneven length. Her shirt looked as though it had been stitched together using the scraps of at least ten different shirts — one arm was a pink, frilly, dress cuff, lace and in layers all the way down her arm, the other arm was a skin tight scrap of what must have been a topaz turtleneck of some sort once upon a time.

He glanced around the apartment — and could think of no other way to describe it other than excessively _Luna_. The kitchen was tiny, crammed away in the corner. The backsplash was orange, and the wall paint was teal, and the cabinets were a harsh, modern black. The floor was wood paneling, but not the expensive kind, he could see all the scratches and damage she had already inflicted upon the floor, dragging this or that here or there. The startlingly white ceiling was incredibly high, and slanted, before it cut off and dove straight down, all the way to the cutoff of the kitchen — an attempt at a loft without the second floor. It reminded him of a house that had been cut in half. Beside the kitchen there was an almost victorian, completely metal spiral staircase, that went all the way up to a door that was suspended where the ceiling cut off and went straight down. He assumed it opened directly onto the roof. There were a few windows there, beside the staircase and the door, almost greenhouse in style, that let this wonderful golden light fall through and down to the rest of the apartment below. There was a sense of clutter everywhere about the apartment. The main room he was standing in was a sort of living room, with a frumpy looking couch against the wall closest to him, facing a television screen. There were picture frames of different shapes and sizes hanging about all the walls, along with an entire map of New York City taped behind the couch. There was a small desk, covered in Luna's clutter: a couple plants, some newspaper cutouts, and a handful of leather journals were piled, teetering on the edge. Beyond that was the bedroom, a fairly large, overly puffy bed sitting politely in the middle. The only serenely clean and uncluttered object in the whole apartment — with a white comforter draped over it. Half of the bedroom he couldn't see, simply because there were these sort of wooden shutters, painted the same teal as the kitchen, that were half closed on one side. It was cramped, and cluttered, and everything seemed to be slammed together but, it seemed right.

He just started to think about where everyone else was to sleep, when she turned around.

It had been such a long time since they had really seen each other. The Battle of Hogwarts had been the longest, most recent time but, they tended to see each other in passing. She'd stop by Hogsmeade, they'd run into each other at Diagon Alley. They were brief interactions, even despite how close they had gotten at Hogwarts. Surface level conversations. Luna was always busy, chasing something, following something. She didn't have time to stick around and chat, not that Neville would have really understood what was going on if she did.

Perhaps she was just avoiding him.

After all, he had kissed her at the Battle of Hogwarts. It had been hasty, and awkward, and sloppy but, he had to. He had had to. And she had kissed him back. He had confessed his love for her but it hadn't been romantic, or anything of the sort. He had thought he was going to die, that she was going to die. It was more of a gut instinct that he had to do, rather than anything else. They hadn't really spoken about it in the aftermath. She had simply waved at him as the dust settled at the end of the battle, and disappeared into thin air, writing the occasional letter his way, traveling the country to interact with all sorts of different creatures he wasn't sure really existed. He, on the other hand, had simply become a herbology professor at the school after Professor Sprout retired. They lived different lives — the affects of the war had changed both of them in opposite ways. She had looked for freedom, and he had looked for structure.

But, here she was. Looking radiant as ever. Her cheeks flushed from the steam of whatever it was she was doing in the kitchen. Her hair light and wispy, her eyes that same bright blue, brighter even than his memories made them. She stared at him for a moment, before her eyes crinkled slightly, and she smiled so brightly he might've been the snow, and she a child who had never seen it before. (It was too cliche to compare himself to the sun, or her for that matter — all he tended to do was wince at the sun if he even glanced upwards at the sky.)

"Neville," she said, and despite it being his own name, it made him jump so intensely that he stopped focusing on his charm, and his luggage dropped with a slam onto the floor.

"Hello Luna," he responded sheepishly.

"I'll only be a moment, I'm just finishing up here," she smiled kindly at him, before turning back to the stove.

He nodded, and hastily turned towards the door, shutting it behind him. The floorboards creaked as he walked, grabbing his suitcase, and placing it out of the way, beside the couch. He took off his oxfords, and placed them neatly beside the pile of ratty sneakers and scuffed dress shoes that lay beside the door. There was an umbrella lying beside the shoes, yellow and covered in what looked to be ducks. He stood up, and walked about the apartment, taking in a few more details as he waited for her to finish up. She had strung a clothesline in the bedroom, and had a few dresses and undergarments hanging on pins delicately. There was a framed picture that was lying facedown on her bedside table, along with yet another journal, with that same blue, slanted font within. He could barely read any of it, not that he really should. It was personal, after all. He wandered around a bit further, investigating the bathroom he hadn't noticed earlier, complete with that same teal blue — this time as a bathroom tile. There was a blue toothbrush lying next to the sink, and pressed, drying flowers hanging precariously in the air.

He joined her at the stove, and watched her wave her wand, allowing the water within the pot she was staring at to turn clockwise, then counterclockwise, then clockwise again.

"I'm making beet juice, if you're wondering," she added without prompting. "It's supposed to be good for health, or at least that's what muggles have been telling me. I'm not sure why but, it's nice to be making it again. I used to make it with my father but, that was a long time ago. I had almost forgotten to make it entirely until I got here."

Neville noticed that he could see each of her individual eyelashes from his vantage point beside her, overlooking the stove. There was a fair sheen of sweat on her cheeks and forehead from the stove. She glanced at him.

"Have you ever made beet juice before?" she asked.

"I haven't," he responded. "I can't picture my gran wanting me to make her anything but tea, really."

She stirred the juice clockwise, then counterclockwise, before going clockwise again.

"I heard about her, by the way, I read about it in the papers. I'm sorry for your loss, Neville."

He shrugged. He was worried that if he did speak, his voice would crack, and that was not how he wanted her to see him.

It was a wound that had not healed but, it was the way life was. People died everyday, so many people died all the time. And it wasn't as though she hadn't lived a long life, it wasn't as though she hadn't seen everything she had ever wanted to see. It just felt, now, as though a part of his childhood was missing, a part of his very soul. He hadn't cried at the funeral, he hadn't had the heart to. It was as though he had cried so much in the direct aftermath of the war that he hadn't had any more tears left to cry. Gran would've understood. She was a hardened, cold woman. A tough woman. Perhaps she would've been proud of him, for once in her life.

Luna turned off the stove, and by the time Neville blinked back into paying attention to his surroundings, she had two mugs full of warm beet juice, and was leading him over to the lumpy couch. She handed him one of the mugs — it was slightly cracked — and sat down, tucking one of her legs under her body. He noticed she was wearing fuzzy socks with little dragons on them. The dragons flew in circles over the material. It made him smile.

"I've never been to New York before," he stated. "It's nice here, different."

She smiled, and sipped her beet juice, jumping slightly at the hot liquid, before blowing some of the steam away, and taking another sip. "It's lovely here, I agree. It's as though the city itself is trying to fix all its broken edges, pull itself back together. All the scaffolding, all the chain link fences, all the constant sounds of construction. It makes me feel as though I belong here. I should've come here sooner."

"Me too."

Neville picked up his beet juice and took a sip. It tasted as though someone had blended soil and dirty dishwater into a drink. He hastily spit the hot liquid back into the cup, attempting to not draw attention to himself.

It didn't look as though Luna noticed. She looked lost in thought, a slight wrinkle that hadn't been around when she was at Hogwarts had formed between her eyebrows. Her eyes, which had once been so full of some indescribable light, seemed faded now. Darker. Her eyes themselves seemed almost sunken slightly into her face, surrounded with slight bags. An exhausted woman. Her expression reminded him of his face in the mirror first thing in the morning. All the pleasantries of sleep pulled away, his mind remembering all the horrors of the war.

"Let's explore the city," she said.

It sounded like a good idea.

* * *

Apparently, it wasn't that cold a winter, according to the New York standards. Apparently, the ground had been covered in sludge, grime, brown piles of dirt pretending to be snow around this time last year; the sidewalks thin and narrow — a maze of snowy banks, frozen solid. Apparently, they were lucky to have such a good winter. To Neville, it felt as though he hadn't left Hogwarts.

The sky was dreary, and it hung low against the buildings, thick and heavy. The air was crisp, biting at his nose, at his lungs with every breath. It felt even worse than it had when he had left the subway mere hours earlier. The cobbled streets where they were staying — a little area he learned was called Little Italy (thanks to the electric sign that hung at the intersection of Broome and Mulberry) — were thin and narrow, winding in endless blocks of concrete. Christmas lights hung in the air from stout little brick building to stout little brick building, and there seemed to be a constant bustle of of people walking from warm place to warm place in an endless hurry. Coats bundled atop coats, sweaters bundled atop sweaters, scarves and hats with little pom-poms being the icing atop the metaphorical cake.

Luna kept pointing out little children stumbling along in far too many layers of clothing, and smiling quietly to herself. Her cheeks were flushed pink from the cold, and puffs of white air kept blossoming from between her chapped lips. She looked tired but, she looked happy — and he was content with that. Her coat was thin, patched on the elbows, scraped up in places it certainly shouldn't have been scraped up in. She had an old, scrapped together, woolen scarf wrapped several times around her neck — she had spent a few minutes telling him about how proud she was that it was twelve feet long, and that she had knitted it herself (without magic).

They walked and walked until Neville could feel his legs beginning to numb, the cold finally seeping through the thick material, until Luna couldn't feel her fingers anymore. They talked about nothing, and everything, all at once. Neville told Luna what it was like to work at Hogwarts, what shy little questions the first years tended to have about his part in the war (_what it was like to fight alongside the legend, Harry Potter?_). She told him about traveling the countryside, discovering different species of creatures and naming them herself. She showed him a scar on her neck from an attempt to learn about a mysterious beast, one that could make itself invisible at a moment's notice. He showed her his hands, covered in scratches and bites from various plants with various tempers. Every mark, every gash, every pinprick came with a story, and they exchanged them, exchanged their years lost. Neville almost forgot that he believed that the others were supposed to be joining them.

"Oh no," Luna had said, after throwing her head back and laughing breathily, "I wouldn't do that to them. They all have their own families, their own children, their own lives that are intricate and busy on their own."

"Are you saying my life isn't busy?"

She smiled gently at him, her cheeks seeming even more pink and flushed against her pale skin, her faded hair — nearly silver in the light. The disoriented look in her eyes faded for a moment as she focused on him, as though he was the only thing she had ever wanted to see. It made his heart skip a beat in his chest.

"Absolutely not, Neville Longbottom. You were the only one I wanted to see, so I made plans to see you, and you alone."

He was glad that his cheeks were already pink because of the cold, otherwise his flustered expression would've been much more obvious.

He thought of the last time they had seen each other. The feeling of stone pressed uncomfortably against his back; her surprisingly laid back face, bathed in the light from different spells exploding nearby; the darkness hiding them privately, serenely for only a moment against the heat of the battle; the blood pumping in his veins; her lips, one of which was slightly cut adding this rather horrible bitter taste in his mouth that he didn't seem to care about.

He cleared his throat.

"Right, well, thank you."

* * *

He insisted on making dinner for the two of them.

She had enough edible items in the tiny kitchenette to feed them, almost a fridge full of different meats, veggies, barely touched. He wondered briefly about what she had been eating before he got there, or if she had simply gone out and purchased everything that she laid her eyes on before he had arrived. But, he had insisted on cooking for her, for them — an entirely selfish choice, as he wasn't exactly willing to suffer through another meal of whatever was worse than beet juice, no matter how much he cared for her.

Because he did, in fact, care for her.

He had cared for her since he had met her way back when her nickname was Loony, and his chubby cheeks and klutzy behavior tended to scare away any romantic interest from any girls he liked. They were two sides of the same coin. Bullied by faceless villains for the sake of a laugh, brushed aside as though they were nothing more. He cared for her immensely, and that — although it had gotten muffled and pushed into the background of his life — hadn't faded all that much.

He just wasn't about to lie to her face about her food choices, and that was that. It wasn't exactly a good way to greet an old friend, especially one that he cared about so deeply and so constantly.

So, instead, he made pasta for the two of them. It was a simple enough recipe — spinach, pasta noodles, cheese, chunks of bacon, a whole chicken breast snipped into strips, and tomato sauce with basil — one that had taken far too much time to get ahold of back at school. The house elves had made it one night for dinner, and he had spent several strenuous evenings attempting to get them to give said recipe to him without much success. (They didn't know exactly which recipe with pasta he was referring to and it was a rather long list of recipes — long story short: house elves got very distracted easily and were not great at following through with simple tasks when it came to Neville Longbottom and Neville Longbottom alone. Perhaps he was simply not demanding enough but, locating that single recipe had taken quite long time. But, he had eventually succeeded — practicing said recipe enough times that he could make it by heart. It had been a success after all that time.)

Luna had settled herself atop one of the counters, taking up much of his limited space but, he couldn't bring himself to mind. She wanted to be there, and there was no stopping her. She had a glass of eggnog in her hand (it had quite a large amount of Muggle alcohol in it), and kept swirling it around, watching the white liquid stain the glass.

"I wanted to ask you," she said, after a particularly long moment of silence.

Neville hesitated casting a spell on a pan to cook the bacon, before glancing over at her.

"I wanted to ask you," she said again, as though she was trying to muster the courage to truly say it, something he truly wasn't used to. She was fairly straightforward when it came to most everything — which made her hesitation with this particularly nerve-wracking. He ran through a list of everything he could have possibly done wrong to her in their time knowing each other. It was a rather long list of anxieties.

"I wanted to ask you why," she finally stated, as she couldn't seem to come up with a better way to say, well, whatever it was she was trying to say.

"Why what?" he countered.

"Why you did what you did, back during the final battle."

Ah.

Well.

It was out in the open now. He was almost wondering if they were simply going to beat around the bush about it or not. All that walking and reminiscing about moments passed during their times at Hogwarts, their times post-Hogwarts, post-the-war, and they had never discussed their kiss, Neville's blurted out, stumbling confession. They hadn't spoken about it in letters, in brief momentary, accidental meet-ups but, the memory had lingered in Neville's mind for years after it. Perhaps that was unhealthy but, at least it was good to know that it was on her mind as well. Even just a little bit.

"Why I kissed you?"

"Yes," she sighed, "and why you told me you loved me."

He paused for a moment, and the silence was filled with the sizzling of bacon on heat, the bubbling of water boiling pasta within the lid of a pot. He looked at the strange coloring in the kitchen but, he did not see it. He could not see it. There was no good way of answering Luna but, he knew he couldn't lie to her. He could feel as though she would be able to sense it. She would know.

He thought about what his younger self would've said to her, what he would have done. What stuttered, bumbling, awkward language he would have created on the fly. Sometimes, he wished that things would have been different. That he would've gotten the courage up to ask her out one fateful afternoon, to take her to some dinner at Hogsmeade, and they would've gone on dates like regular students. He could've bought her flowers, and chocolates, and all the cliche bullshit that couples tended to do back in school. It would've been nice, pleasant.

But, everything had not turned out that way.

Instead he had been hardened by the war, and she too. Everyone had. He wasn't that bumbling kid anymore, even if he did break out into fits of awkwardness from time to time. He could handle himself, as could she. They had grown up, and far too quickly at that.

"Because I did," he said, shrugging slightly, "I loved you, I loved you so much. And sure, it might've possibly had something to do with the heat of the battle that lead to my actual confession but, it was there long before that. After the Death Eaters had taken you off the train, it hit me. It probably should've hit me sooner, to be completely honest but, I didn't want to fight this war without being by your side. The last thing I ever wanted, I realized, was to lose you," he chuckled softly, "it was only after I did that it really sunk in. Ginny had to physically push me back from going after you when they took you, it was a bit ridiculous, to be completely honest."

Luna made a soft little noise from the counter, somewhere between a sigh and something incomprehensible. He didn't look at her.

"I thought I was going to die during the battle," he continued, "sure I had gotten better with my spell casting and Ginny and I, we'd been fighting the Death Eater staff at Hogwarts but, that didn't mean I was ready to fight armed Death Eaters, nobody was, even after so much training, and all my pent up emotions and feelings sort of came pouring out of me all at once, and I knew I had to tell you. I'd regret it otherwise. So I did."

"You told me you loved me, and then you kissed me," she seemed to echo quietly, almost remembering the moment.

"I did," he said. "Sorry, again, by the way."

She didn't say anything.

"It won't happen again," he added, in a joking manner, to easy the air of tension that had seemingly fallen over the room. Something he wasn't entirely sure he was imagining or not.

He heard her move softly, and before he knew it, he felt her arms wrap around his torso, right by his ribs, squeezing him tightly. He could feel her head pressing against his back, right between his shoulder blades, her thin, dainty fingers pressing against the material of his shirt. He stopped moving, frozen for a brief moment.

He had never known Luna to be so out of words. She was someone who babbled so incoherently all the time, at least from his memory. And yet, here they were.

He moved his hand up, and held it, suspended, over one of hers. He hesitated for a moment, before gently lying it atop hers, and squeezing slightly, gently.

It might've been his ears playing tricks on him but, he could've sworn he heard her say _thank you_.

* * *

Like a moment out of one of Hermione's romantic comedy muggle films — he had watched one with her out of curiosity, something he had enjoyed thoroughly although if Ron (and Ron alone) ever asked, he would say that he disliked it — they had agreed to share the bed.

There hadn't been much of an argument over it in the first place, much like there tended to be in those movies. His airplane flight had been long and exhausting, something he had been most incapable of sleeping on, and after the warm, delicious meal that he had made for the two of them, his body was just about ready to pass out. She had made the offer that they share, and he had nodded without really questioning it. The idea of sleeping on the couch hadn't ever crossed his mind — it was far too short for his gangly, uncoordinated, lanky body to fit on. And that was that.

So instead, he laid atop the covers in his pajamas, with a thin, knitted blanket tossed over his body, while she carefully had tucked herself under the thick, white comforter to the point where her tousled, blonde head was just barely visible under the layers. There was just a pillow between them, a simple barricade from limbs getting too close in the darkness of night.

He stared at the ceiling for a long while, listening to Luna readjust herself, and sigh, and breathe deeply, and readjust herself like clockwork. Despite the rest of the apartment being so modern, the ceiling was bristled and popcorn-y, like a geographic map of a mystical mountain range. He tried to count the amount of bumps but, he kept losing track. There was no order to them; they simply were. They existed as a hint of a time passed, and that was that. The windows above the headboard of the bed, with warped, stained glass, allowed a constant sense of light into the room, extending shades of blue and yellow all the way across the ceiling, moving slightly whenever a muggle car passed by. It was strange and beautiful, and he smiled gently at all the popcorn bits stuck to the ceiling.

He ran a hand through his hair, and glanced over at Luna, shuffling his weight slightly so that he was on his side, leaning his head against his forearm to look at her. She was lying on her back, with the comforter pulled all the way up to her chin. The lights from the street seemed to fall directly against her face, a spotlight of sorts, taking note of all the careful curves of her eyebrows, of her cheekbones, highlighting every individual strand of hair that fell across her porcelain forehead. Her nose came to a perfect point, though he had a distinct memory of it being broken at least once during that final battle but, perhaps it was just that: a memory. He was close enough that he could count each individual eyelash that curved upwards; close enough to notice that all the slight, gentle wrinkles that creased her face when she was aware that someone was looking at her disappeared when her face relaxed; close enough to take note of her slightly chapped lips. The comforter moved slightly as she breathed, and Neville forced himself to look away.

He was exhausted, he reminded himself, and the popcorn ceiling. He needed to sleep.

He glanced back at Luna for only one more moment to remind himself that this was real. That he was really seeing her again.

He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

* * *

Neville awoke, and the first thing he noticed was that he was a lot warmer than he remembered going to sleep being. And then, he noticed the comforter, the one that Luna had been so delightfully tucked under, was wrapped around his body, practically engulfing him. He could see a little slice of the room from within the confines of his comforter prison — a faded poster pinned to the wall depicting a man and woman dramatically poised together, about to kiss. It wasn't moving, so he assumed it was some sort of old muggle romantic comedy, like one of the ones Hermione had watched with him (he was the only one who would tolerate them and all their cliches).

He sat up slowly, and dug himself out of the layers of blankets. It was only when he reached the surface, hair flopping in every direction, that he realized why it had been so difficult.

Luna, in her sleep, was practically wrapped around him, having pushed him all the way to the very edge of the bed. She had sandwiched him with her body and the comforter, spooned him really, with her limbs spread out in all directions, splayed over his wrapped up ones. She was still snoring softly, her hair spread out in all directions, as though a tornado had swept through and left her, all scrambled, in its wake. If she had moved the two of them any further towards the edge of the bed, he would've fallen completely off of it. He couldn't help but smile down at her, carefully removing himself from the knot of blankets and pillows she had created in her sleep, pushing her arms and legs that had been pulled over his back so he would be certain that she wouldn't fall clean off the bed.

Neville stayed for a moment, just watching her with a smile on his face. As he often wondered of Hermione when he read her letters, he wondered what she would have been like if not for the war. If she would've been bullied by her peers until she became nothing but a wisp of a girl, nothing left but a vivid imagination and a desire to disappear into the greenery, the forests, where the animals within wouldn't harm her. Or perhaps, perhaps she would have been stronger, she would have stood up to those who called her names, or stole her things sooner, let the little things get to her, with harsh, biting anger and clenched fists. Perhaps she would have grown up with a mother who loved her as much as all her friends did, if not more — a mother who was all heart, and laughed carefully at all the beautiful things in life. He wasn't sure. Perhaps they were just the thoughts of a sleep-deprived man, in dire need of some food. He really wasn't sure.

He got dressed into a new set of clothes, another slightly crumpled sweater, with a crisp button down beneath it, and grabbed his coat, heading out into the brisk New York winter. He remembered there were a number of cafes nearby, little restaurants that sold little things that would, again, be much better than drinking more beet juice. He purchased a few sandwiches and some coffees from a quaint little shop with a green awning and golden, peeling, cursive letters painted on the window. He paid for it with muggle money — Hermione had given him a lesson in it very briefly, forever ago.

He could still hear Hermione saying, "Honestly Neville," and shaking her head, curls bouncing in every direction, with a gentle smile on her face whenever he'd mess up some tiny, seemingly insignificant thing. Whenever he was with Hermione, which to be fair was not very often, it felt like he was back in school again. _Honestly Neville, won't you ever learn?_

Luna was awake by the time he climbed the stairs back to the little apartment, sitting on the rickety metal spiral staircase, staring out the window at what seemed to be nothing. She didn't notice him walk in for a long moment, lost in thought, or lost in something. He noticed that the tired wrinkles that had disappeared in her sleep had returned but, if anything, they made her more beautiful. She pushed her hair back out of her face, and flipped it in the opposite direction that he was used to it being, and climbed down the stairs.

"You got breakfast," she smiled, looking at the bags in his hands, and the coffees.

"New York is known for its food, isn't it?"

"Oh, it's known for a lot of things, I think but, maybe food is one of them. The city that never sleeps always has something open, and those places are usually food. Even this close to Christmas."

She grabbed her coat from the couch, and pulled it over her pajamas — which was an oversized, moth eaten shirt and a pair of checkered shorts — and pondered something.

"_Insomnia Cookies_, twenty-four hour cookies. That's a good example, I think," she nodded to herself, "let's eat on the roof, it's really quite beautiful up there."

She grabbed one of the bags from him, and one of the coffees and started up the victorian staircase, the metal creaking with every step she took. She wasn't wearing shoes but, if anything it just made him smile. She never seemed to be wearing shoes from his memories. Always galavanting across the yards of grass near the school, and stopping abruptly to stare at something floating through the air, to stick daisies in her hair, to comment on something that he couldn't see, and never would be able to see. She opened the door to the roof and stepped out, and he followed her.

If anything, it was colder up here than it was on the street. The wind seemed harsher, more prevalent. Neville wrapped his coat further around his body, and watched Luna meander across the roof. It seemed to be covered in these grey-blue tiles, that seemed to be curving upwards in places — a sense of decay and dirt caked atop them. There was a small garden tucked away in one corner, with a rusted metal bench, and several dying, if not already dead, plants. Vines curled in dead, grey patterns, splaying leaves of different shapes and sizes across the surrounding area. There was hardly any snow up there, as though it had all melted fairly quickly despite the weather — the only remaining bits were near the constructed slopes that mirrored the one that he and Luna had climbed out of, with their windows, and their rooftop doors, and he assumed, their spiral staircases that led back down to their apartments below.

Luna left clean footprints across the roof, cutting through the disregarded dirt and grime, until she sat safely right on the edge of the building, her feet still on the roof, while her body twisted so she could see the skyline. He stood still for a moment, watching as he hair blew in the wind, curls curving this way and that, strands tangling themselves across her features. She ran a hand through her hair, pulling some of it back behind her ear. He walked over and sat, teetering, on the edge of the building.

She was right, the skyline was beautiful. Buildings went on and on in neat little rows, ranging in height and width, the majority being that delightful rusty brick color, but remaining fairly small in their little part of the woods. The buildings got taller, and broader, and fancier with sleek glass windows in the distance but, it was mostly hidden by muffled fog. He looked down at the street below, watching the different, bundled forms of muggles wandering from shop to shop, restaurant to restaurant, gathering last minute gifts for Christmas. There was one elderly woman in a bright green hat who seemed to be struggling with her bags. Someone came up to her, and offered their help, to which the woman placed an hand on the person's arm for thanks. He smiled.

Luna blew gently on her coffee, and the steam curled elegantly into the air. She seemed to be lost in thought, looking out over the skyline. He wondered what details she was noticing that he never would.

"I thought you left me when I woke up this morning. Just got up and left."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she took a sip of her coffee. "But, I saw your luggage, and your pajamas were still on the bed, folded, so I knew you'd be back."

"I would never leave without saying goodbye, Luna. You know I wouldn't, don't you?"

"I suppose, it just slipped my mind. Everything important seems to be slipping my mind these days. Perhaps it has something to do with…"

She trailed off into nothingness but, Neville decided not to press, no matter how curious he was on the matter. She would tell him when she was read, she always did. They sat in silence for a long moment, and Neville dug into his sandwich — it had pickles, some sort of finely sliced meat, salted and peppered to perfection, and what he could only guess was some sort of fancy cheese.

"Thank you for being here with me, thank you for coming to New York, just thank you. Thank you for everything," said Luna, finally turning to him, taking her gaze off of the skyline.

"I haven't done all that much. Besides, I like spending time with you, I've always liked spending time with you. You don't need to thank me."

"Perhaps I'm just grateful. You've done more than you'll ever know."

"That's certainly ominous," he noted, glancing at her shiver slightly. "Are you cold?"

"Oh," she blinked, "I guess I am."

Without a moment's notice, he took off his own coat, and wrapped it around her shoulders. His wand was still downstairs — something he was rather proud of, after all that the war had burned into his subconscious. He smiled at her, and made a mental note on just how doll like she looked, her face all thin and porcelain against the dark fabric of his coat, looking twice as tiny as she usually did.

She stared at him for a moment, before he face broke out into a kind smile. There were wrinkles by her eyes that hadn't been there during the war. She scooted closer to him and leaned her head on his shoulder. He hesitated for only a moment before he leaned his head back against hers, feeling the tender fibers of her hair tickle his cheek, his nose, his skin; feeling the warmth radiate off of her body in waves. He closed his eyes. It just felt right, the two of them here, like this. It was as though the cold could never bother him again with her by his side. Never again.

"Thank you," she stated again, a broken record of a girl but, this time he didn't seem to mind. "Thank you so much."

* * *

It was a fairly laid-back day after that. Luna was content with spending the afternoon in her pajamas, gently updating him on the little details from her life that she had forgotten to mention the day before. She had pulled out her journals, a whole stack of leather-bound, bursting, stained books, and began picking out different bits and pieces to read aloud to him. She told him about different animals she had run into, new discoveries she had made, people she had met. She painted a picture of her life, her words surrounding him like a warm, soft bath of jazz, or spoken word poetry.

He tended to the plants in the apartment, and on the rooftop, gently doing what he could to nurse them back into slightly better health. He was grateful, for once, that he had overpacked, bringing a few tools from school with him. He told her about Harry and Ginny's children, about how they were doing in school. He brought some photographs he had been sent by Ginny and Hermione separately to show her, and she gasped and cooed with each moving photograph. She remarked on how beautiful Ginny had become over the years, even more beautiful than she had been back in school, as Ginny's little face grinned at the camera, and waved her eldest son's baby hand with gusto — it was an old photograph. Neville wondered if she missed them, the group of them, all being side by side like the old days, like in their fifth year and beyond. He wondered if she felt the way he did. He couldn't tell. She seemed happy alone in the woods.

He made fun of her sleeping habits, as the day went on, made fun of her almost pushing him off of their shared bed in her sleep. She made fun of his erratic snoring, his tossing and turning in his own sleep. The sun pushed through the sky, and time passed and felt still all at once. It was almost as though no time had passed between them. As though they had always been this way, side by side, sharing the intimate details of their lives, the apartment filled with the constant sound of their voices, their laughter, their stories, their words. He wouldn't have it any other way.

* * *

They were each four glasses in on a cheap, verging on shitty muggle alcoholic beverage — Hermione had recommended a pinot noir of some variation in some letter of hers, Neville remembered but, if asked which particular one he, sincerely, would not have been able to tell anyone, least of all Hermione herself — feeling truthfully tipsy, when Luna shifted.

She hesitated for a long moment, a sentence running dry on her tongue as she began, cheeks flushed brightly, eyes wide, almost attempting to stop herself from starting to speak. The words were getting tangled in her mouth, what she had been trying to say fusing with what she knew she had to say.

He raised his eyebrows. If he was any more sober, it would have been nerve-wracking but, his nerves were dulled, pushed off to a back burner where he didn't have to think about them. Instead, he could focus on the way her hair fell across her face, the new scars that she had just begun to tell stories about, and the distinct color of her eyes.

He watched her crack the joints of her fingers, pick at the space beneath her nails, as she contemplated something hidden within the confines of her own mind. A decision to be made. She looked down at her knees for a moment, before she stood up suddenly, surprisingly steady for her tipsiness — it was as though she had regained all her sobriety with the words she had decided to utter.

"Can you not think, for me?" it was a quiet statement, and if anybody else had said it, Neville would have been hurt, frustrated, something. But, it was coming from Luna, who's bluntness was simply a part of her person, her character. "Come with me?"

Neville honestly did not remember getting to his feet, taking her hands which were outstretched towards him, and following her into the bedroom. He didn't remember what she whispered, all confident and heavy-lidded, with just a tinge of flustered splashed in. He couldn't remember anything beyond the thudding of his heart, so loud, so sudden, that he could hear it in his ears, feel it pounding away in his chest, so deafening that he was sure she could hear it. He could remember nothing about that moment but the twinge in his stomach, as though something was about to happen, something life-changing, something beautifully brilliant. Something he was sure he had gone through before but, alas, something that was new each and every time.

When his mind finally kicked his memory back into motion, he was lying on his side, looking away from Luna, with the faint, constant feeling of her fingertips tracing designs against the cloth of his shirt, faintly replicated on the skin of his back below. A flower, a vine, he couldn't tell. She was close enough that he could feel her breath on the back of his neck — warm and elegant, smelling faintly of mint, and making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up on edge, making that feeling in his stomach grown only stronger. Something was coming, the tension had nearly reached its breaking point.

"My mother, when she was alive," Luna was saying, faintly, her voice just barely above a whisper, "she used to calm me down by doing this. She'd write words on my back, and I would guess them, she'd draw pictures of plants, of buildings, of people, and I would guess them until I fell asleep. I used to get these nightmares as a child, and as much as love my father, I would always go to her to comfort me. She was just better at it, I think — a sort of calm would come over her, and I'd close my eyes, and that would be it."

Neville closed his eyes. If it were anybody else, he would find talking about a parent would be a mood killer but, it was Luna. She could make anything intricately elegant, and intricately her. "That's beautiful, Luna."

"I wanted to share it with you. I've never told anyone that. But, I think it's important to who I am, to who I became after the war, or really after my mother died. When she died, I lost that part of myself that would run to her when I was overwhelmed by a nightmare. I lost my childhood. I had to grow up so quickly, we all did. Perhaps that was what brought us all together."

_A shared trauma_, he thought to himself. He understood, after everything that had happened to his parents, he too had become a different person. After they were hospitalized, after he was sent to live with his Gran, that was it. He could never go back to how he was before, he lost the ability to live the life he was supposed to live.

The bed shifted for a moment, and before Neville could open his eyes, he felt her arm wrap around his torso, pulling her own body taught against his. He could feel her nose pressing against the back of his neck, her lips carefully brushing against his skin. He didn't know what to say.

"I wanted to share that with you," she repeated, "but I don't really know why. I guess it just felt right."

He wondered if she could feel the thudding of his heart in his ribcage, as though it was trying to escape the confines of his chest. He wanted to respond, to ask her something but, he couldn't bring himself to speak. He couldn't even bring himself to open his mouth. Part of him desperately wanted to believe that there was something beyond Luna's strange, constant antics, and that her heart leaned in the same direction his did but, the constant what if halted him in his tracks. The idea that she could just be being Luna, her strange, mystical self, and the connected idea that he could easily crush their friendship with one clumsy blow — it was almost too much to think of.

He had tried so long to think of other things, to date other people, to not linger on that kiss that they had shared. He had little to remember her by, as the years had passed and they had grown further and further apart in distance, in career choice, in life, in everything. The last thing he wanted to do was to create some fantasy from the desperation and complete belief that he was going to die during that final battle. So, rather forcibly, he had gotten into the habit of pushing the memory away, thinking of other things. She was so far away that it was easy. Or, she had been so far away.

It was hard to think of anything else when she was pressed into his back and her breath danced down the back of his neck.

There were only so many variations "perhaps she was just lonely after such a long time stumbling about in the bush, with a tent and her wand to keep her safe" that he could come up with before his feelings for her broke through the metaphorical dam that he had built to keep them there.

So, Neville lay there, incapable of opening his mouth. Hesitating, frozen in time, almost content to lie in this perfectly warm, slightly intoxicated, softly colorful (like that of light that permeated its way through his closed eyelids) moment. A moment that he wanted to bottle, if he could.

He didn't even realize he had turned over until he was facing her. The warmth was gone from his back, replaced by a strange, tingly one at his front. He could feel her breath on his lips, and as he opened his eyes, witnessing that hers were closed, he realized that if he wanted to, he could count exactly how many faded, ghost-like freckles coated her skin. He thought, suddenly, about how long it would take to kiss each and every single one.

If it were any other time, the thought would have made him freeze. But, something had shifted within him. The metaphorical dam of emotions he had kept himself hidden behind had broken but, it wasn't like he had been expecting. It just felt right, in every single way imaginable.

Luna opened her eyes, and smiled at him.

"I'd like to kiss you," he said, a little more breathless than he had intended, "if that's alright?"

"You really didn't have to ask," she replied, placing her hand on his cheek, before leaning in and kissing him first, before he really had the chance to act.

After that, time seemed to shift, and everything seemed to pick up the pace.

He couldn't explain it but, everything seemed to be enhanced, brighter. The hair on the back of his neck, his arms, stood on end. Luna's hand ran its way through his messy hair, clenching slightly with a quiet amount of ferocity. His own hands instantly clasped at her waist, pulling her closer to him than she was already, digging carefully into her skin. Her lips were soft, wet against his own, but he couldn't seem to get enough of them. His body reacted without a second thought, a continuous cycle of going in for more, more, more, until he could taste her chapstick, could taste the slightly bitter tinge of wine on her tongue. He had no idea how much time had passed, time itself could have stopped and he would have never noticed. Her hair tickled his face as she leaned in, finally rolling overtop him, pinning him down against the bed with her hips alone, not that he wanted to be anywhere else in the first place.

He leaned upwards for a kiss, eyes closed, and met nothing but air. His eyes fluttered open, and he was met with the grinning face of Luna Lovegood as she straddled his hips, her hands leaning against the fabric of the blanket on either side of his head. Her hair formed a careful curtain over her right shoulder that fell in a cloudy mess against the covers. Her cheeks were flushed brightly, a shade he could only imagine his own face was matching perfectly. Her pupils were large, round disks, and she couldn't seem to wipe the smile off her face — not even when she bit her lower lip.

"You're the most beautiful person I've ever seen, Neville Longbottom," she said, slightly breathless, and he believed it, more than he had ever believed anything in his life. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you before."

"It's okay," was all he could manage.

"I want to do this with you," she leaned down and gave him a chaste kiss on his lips, two on his cheeks, and another on his nose. "I want you."

"Yes," he sputtered.

She laughed, and as he ran the fingertips of his hands down the curve of her waist, he could have sworn he could feel the vibration of each burst of sound. "Yes?"

"God, sorry, I'm just slightly distracted."

"I can't imagine why."

"I want you, Luna, I really, really do," he smiled at her, and something in her grin faltered slightly, as though she felt, for the first time, the honesty of his words. "I could shout it from the rooftops, although I think I'd get pretty embarrassed afterwards. But, I'd do it if you wanted me to. I'd do it because I want you, I want you more than I've ever wanted anything in my life."

"Oh, shut up."

And that was that.

She leaned back down over him, and pressed another one of her passionate, intense kisses to his lips, and he melted like butter. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest but, he thought nothing of it. A strange twitch of sensation ran its way down his body, settling at his groin, right where she had positioned all her weight, and he could think of nothing else. His hands settled back at her hips, gently clasping them with delicate fingers, holding them tightly against his own.

Her lips slipped from his own, and began to trail against his cheek, his jaw, down to his neck, causing his eyelids to flutter, and a soft groan to emanate from between his parted lips. He felt her hands brush against his cheeks for a moment before tangling themselves in his hair. He turned his head to the side to grant her more access to his neck, and right as her tongue darted out against a specific pressure point, he felt his hips twitch embarrassingly upwards. He heard Luna gasp brightly before sitting upright. She looked down at him wide eyed and breathless, an excited grin across her features. He groaned and quickly covered his face with his hands.

"Neville," he heard her say, and he peaked one eye out from between his fingers.

She was partially ravaged in moonlight from the window above the headboard on the bed, the stained glass cutting her body into uneven portions. Her jaw and part of her chest were painted yellow, her torso was blue, her eyes painted a translucent moonlit white. She grinned at him, once she was sure he was watching her, and she pulled her shirt off. He couldn't help but gasp softly at the sight of her.

Her brassiere was all lace, an intricate, even design of flowers and other elegant works of nature that wound over her chest. He slowly removed his hands from his face, and sat upright until they were practically eye to eye, just taking her in. The sharp line of her collarbone, the slight gooseflesh that dotted what he could see of her breasts, some of the more quiet scars from spells and monsters she had faced during and after the war. He leaned in and pressed his lips against her neck in careful kiss, taking in the slight mint of her skin. He moved his hand up to her chin, and tilted it aside, and leaned in, starting a constellation of hickeys across her pale skin. She squirmed in his lap, carefully punctuating every gasp that left her mouth with the feeling of her nails against his back. He wound his hands around her back, to the clasp of her bra, and heard her audibly gasp as he unclipped it without fail.

They broke apart for only a moment, allowing him to pull his own shirt off and carefully remove her bra from her heaving chest, revealing her pale breasts. It was an almost odd moment, his brain stopped processing, and something almost animalistic deep within him seemed to kick in. Careful to avoid injuring her in any way, shape, or form, he rolled the two of them over, her legs hooked around his hips, and pressed a passionate kiss to her lips. And then he went lower; down to the sharp edge of her jawline; to her sensitive neck as she shivered below him; to the dip of her clavicle; her dainty collarbone; to the twin peaks of her breasts (as she curved her spine upwards to meet his lips, his tongue); to the stretch of her stomach, below her navel, until he could taste the salt of her sweat, lower and lower and lower.

She reached down with one hand and grabbed his hand, intertwining their fingers, squeezing harder and harder with anticipation, while the other hand tangled itself in his hair, her knees hooked over his shoulders, his tongue making her voice growing louder and louder, calling his name audibly, until he could think of nothing else but her, nothing but Luna Lovegood.

* * *

Sore was an understatement for what Neville was feeling the next morning.

He felt bruised, spent, exhausted, but more content than he had felt in a very long time. His whole body was in a painful, yet pleasant haze. It was as though all the stress that he had kept pent up in his chest since the war had come pouring out of him in one night of rather intense pleasure.

He glanced over at Luna, who he could feel was next to him on the bed, under the covers that they had both shared the night under. She was still asleep, sporting a few new spotted hickeys on either side of her neck, making it look as though he had painted her porcelain skin with his mouth. It was a strange thought but, one that brought a tired smile to his face. Her hair was a mess, tangled beyond belief, spewing in every direction across the sheets.

She had, once again, pushed him right to the edge of the bed, with her naked leg thrown over his torso, and her arm strewn limply at his shoulder. He couldn't help but smile at her, as her nose whistled contently. It was almost unbelievable that it had really happened, the two of them had really happened. Oh, he sounded like a teenager. He turned more to face her, smiling brightly at her sleeping form. The comforter was mostly off her body, revealing the pale arc of her hip, and the soft curve of her breast, emphasized by the sun now coming in through the window above. He wanted to bottle the moment, to sit in it.

Being with Luna felt different than anybody else he had slept with, cliched as it was. They had paused in their lovemaking to laugh, for her to give him an overly sweet compliment, and for him to get embarrassed. Oh, that made him sound as though he had never slept with anyone before, which simply wasn't true. It was just hard to describe. He just felt a lot shyer with her, and at the same time a lot more comfortable as well. It had felt as though, with Luna, everything was a big deal, bigger than simply hooking up with someone from a bar, it felt life changing, even. Perhaps it was simply because they knew each other, had known each other for so long, had gone through so much together. He didn't feel the need to grab his things and bolt the next morning, he just wanted to lie next to her and watch her wake up. Rolling over into consciousness, rolling over to see Luna curled beside him felt like coming home after a very, very long day. All warm, and fuzzy, and content — as though he had been waiting for this, for her, since forever.

He could've laid there, waiting for her all morning, if not for the fact that he had to use the WC.

Slowly, as to not disturb her, he slithered his way out of bed — freezing only for a moment, tensing slightly as she rolled over, away from him, pulling the blanket with her. Success. He grabbed his boxers from the floor, pulling them on, and his pajama bottoms that had gotten tossed to the floor at some point during the night, and stumbled, now wide awake, to the bathroom.

He flicked on the light and was almost surprised to see his reflection staring back at him through the mirror. He almost didn't recognize himself.

He stepped inside and closed the door with a small click, before stepping closer to the mirror. His bare chest was decorated with red marks, blotches of this and that, where her lips had met with his skin. His neck had taken the brunt of it, stained smudges of red and purple, lipstick and hickeys, looking like some bad replication of muggle tie-dye. The marks traveled down his chest, growing fainter and less clustered, right up until the waistline of his boxers, which made him turn pink ever so slightly — although it was a ridiculous thought to turn pink at. They had had sex. Many times, at that. The embarrassment should be over and done with now. Please. He tilted his head this way and that, taking it all in.

His hair was also a mess. The dark strands were sticking up at odd angles, directions that he had only ever seen Harry's hair stick up at back in school. He couldn't help but give his reflection a goofy grin. Just looking at himself solidified that it was real, that it was all real. Luna was asleep in bed, naked, and last night had, in fact, happened.

After using the WC itself, Neville pulled his pajama bottoms on, washed his hands, and stepped out of the bathroom to lean against the doorframe and look out upon the room. It was almost a surprise that nobody had come knocking on their door, wondering if everything was alright. There were two chairs lying overturned and forgotten; the couch had been shifted so it stood at a lopsided angle; both his and her clothes were strewn about the apartment haphazardly — he even spotted a sock hanging atop an overturned bedside lamp; Luna's floral brassiere was thrown to the floor beside the bedside table; the bottle of wine (half empty) was sitting on the edge atop the stout little coffee table in the section of space that could be considered the living room, with two glasses (nearly empty) squeezed together — he could even still see Luna's faintly colored lipstick lingering on the rim.

Running a hand through his mess of hair, he tried to pull the apartment back together as Luna slept. A few simple charms folded their clothing, and laid it against the edge of the bed, the furniture (with a few simple silencing charms placed upon them) shifting back into place, the dishes scrubbing themselves clean neatly in the sink. He simply didn't have it in him to curl back beside her, he was too awake for that now. Besides, there was a rather high possibility that he could wake her, and that was the last thing he wanted to do. She looked so peaceful, her hair spread out across the pillows in curled sheets, her mouth slightly ajar, drooling.

He had only begun to cook breakfast when she woke, softly and sweetly, like something from a fairytale. It took her a long moment to sit up — groaning and grumbling, and trying to pull herself back into an unconscious state — but once she eventually sat upright, rubbing her eyes and yawning audibly, her hair hanging in a fuzzy halo about her head, looking at her just felt right. All his fears that had arose melted away. She smiled softly when she caught his eyes.

"Morning," she sighed. "Whatever you're making, it smells delicious."

"Good morning," he said. "It's fried egg dish, of sorts. It's got potatoes, onions, that sort of thing. Hermione gave me the recipe from Mrs Weasley."

"I can't wait."

Luna got out of bed, pulling on one of her worn, oversized shirts, letting it hang loosely at her thighs. She shuffled towards him, yawning tremendously, forcing a smile upon his face. She peered over at his cooking from beside his shoulder, stealing a single slice of potato from the concoction, before disappearing into the WC. The sound of the shower being turned on followed.

By the time she reappeared — hair wrapped up in a towel, dressed in some glittery, multi-colored sweater — he had cracked the eggs into the dish, and let it simmer to perfection. He had even placed a vase of transfigured flowers on the coffee table for the two of them. The sunlight streamed in, the morning truly waking up to its fullest, carefully finding all the crevices in the walls, in the furniture, against the floor.

Luna sat on the couch, pulling her hair out of the towel, and letting it hang in loose, damply uneven waves about her shoulders.

"Have you ever been in love, Neville?" she asked, after a few bites of food, her legs crossed delicately beneath her into an intricate pretzel.

He nearly choked on his food.

"What I mean is," she continued, as though she hadn't even noticed him choke, "do you think you've ever experienced, or felt what people talk about in poetry?"

Neville stared at her from the opposite side of the couch, unsure if she wanted him to reply. It had always been hard to know if he was part of their conversation, or simply an audience. During his final year at Hogwarts, tucked away in the room of requirement, he would listen to her mumble endlessly about her worries, concerns, hopes and dreams for the future — after the war, if they even got out of it. Part of him had come to believe she was so used to talking to herself, that she wouldn't even notice if he walked away but, part of him believed that she had chosen him, someone to listen to her thoughts, to be there for her through the thickest part of the war.

"I'm not sure. I think I want to experience it, whatever it is. To meet the right person, at the right time, and every other cliche in the book."

"Even if it was for a short period of time?"

Neville thought of the war, of how little he realized he had experienced when he had stepped foot into it — nothing more than a child soldier. How much he realized he had wanted to experience once it ended. It had been part of the reason he had kissed her in the first place. A late realization to not be afraid anymore, and simply take the leap.

"Even if it was the most painful thing in the world," he said, and she met his eyes, her glazed wonder staring expressionlessly back at him.

He looked away.

"I agree," she sighed. "Not a falsified version of love, half-baked and whatnot. I'd be lucky to feel the real thing, at least once," she put her plate down on the table and seemed to stare off into space, watching the dust dance through the air, or in her mind, some unseen creature he had never heard of. "Well, I guess what I mean is, I feel like it's difficult for me now, to feel so strongly about one thing. I'm not like Hermione, I don't drown myself in my work, in helping others. I'm not a fanatic over one specific thing. I get bored easily, and I move on, and I don't want that anymore. I want to be able to stay in one place at a time, to truly stay there."

"The war changed us in different ways, Luna, if that's what you mean."

She opened her mouth, hesitated, before closing it again.

"Or, are you talking about me?"

The warmth that had settled in his chest cooled slightly. The light pooling in from the windows felt darker, colder, as though a cloud had passed in front of the sun. Perhaps he should have waited longer before bringing them up, whatever this them was. If there was any them at all. He swallowed dryly, looking down at his food. There was hardly any left on his plate.

"I'm not sure," she said. "Everything is so muted in my head, that I don't know if I would know what love felt like if it came and slapped me across the face," she let out a quiet little chuckle. "Perhaps, the only thing I know is that it would want to make me stop running. I don't know any more than that."

If Neville tried, he couldn't remember the rest of their conversation for the life of him. The sun passed contently through the sky, the windows steamed — dividing them from the world outside, and everything seemed right in the world. Perhaps, Neville believed, this was the start of something. Perhaps he was someone that she was willing to stop rushing about the country, following creature after creature for. Perhaps. They had laughed about something unimportant, finished their individualized plates, and Luna had commented that she had to "stop by Mrs Weasley to get the recipe for that dish" at some point. It hadn't felt like the ending in the moment but, looking back at it, Neville couldn't imagine it being anything but.

He wasn't quite sure what prompted him to go take a shower but, he remembered stepping into the WC, a fresh set of clothes under his arm.

"You're sure," he smiled down at her from the doorway, "you're absolutely sure you're clean. You don't want to double check?"

She smiled back at him, something that didn't quite meet her eyes. "I'm positive."

"Alright, fine," he backed off, raising his hands in mock defense. "I'll be back."

He had closed the door behind him, completely undressed, and had stepped under the warm hiss of water when the shower curtain was flung back out of nowhere.

"Luna," he started, hand pressed to his heart out of fear but, was cut off with a kiss.

It was the type of kiss that would have made anybody melt. It seemed to go on for ages, and ages, and ages but, just as quickly as it started, it was over. Neville was left leaning forwards, eyes closed, to meet nothing but air. He heard Luna giggle.

Her hair was just damp under the shower head's spray, and she pulled it out of her eyes. Blonde waves pulled back, tucked behind her ears, revealing a pair of earrings — one a fork, and the other a spoon. Her sweater glimmered softly in the dim light. Her eyes sparkling with something he later realized must have been tears but, he couldn't remember much more than that.

"I may not know what love feels like, Neville Longbottom, but I've never felt anything like what I feel when I'm with you."

And with that, she was gone, turning on her heel, closing the WC door softly behind him. It took him a long moment to focus again, smiling to himself, wondering how on earth he could have possibly gotten this lucky, and returning to the rest of his shower.

He did not even realize anything was wrong until he stepped out of the shower, fully dressed, a beaming smile on his face.

The apartment was completely and entirely empty. There were no shelves, no kitchen, no couch, no bed, no nothing. The victorian stairwell that led up to the roof was still present but, it was covered in a thick layer of dust. It was as though nobody had lived in the apartment in weeks, if not years. He stood, frozen, in the doorway of the WC, staring at the impossibility of it all, his wand pulled from his jeans pocket on habit, ready for action.

"Luna?" he said, and his voice echoed back to him. He couldn't think of anything else to say. This had to be a dream, there was no other explanation for it. What had happened to her?

He walked towards the windows at the far end of the apartment with echoed footsteps, and looked out them. Everything was normal, Christmas decorations were hanging from the walls, bundled shoppers hurried past as though nothing was wrong in the world. His heart felt as though it was going to jump out of his chest, and not in an exciting way. No time had passed yet, there was no trace of her, no trace of anything. It wasn't as though his shower was all that long.

It took him a good five minutes before he noticed the origami rose. It was sitting in the near center of the apartment, a delicate balanced item standing directly upright upon a wrapped paper stem. A work of magic that could be none other than Luna's. It was a strange little thing, edges of pale, moving paper could be seen within the folds and creases. It was as though the object itself was breathing.

Neville sat on the floor beside the flower, deflated. It was here as a sign. She hadn't been kidnapped. She had left.

He gently brushed his index finger along one of the petals and the whole flower unfurled itself. Creases straightened, folds unfolded, until it was a simple piece of parchment hovering in front of him.

_My dearest Neville_, the opening read in scrawling letters that could not be anybody's but Luna's. Neville took a deep, shuddering breath, his heart clenched in his chest.

_I have lied to you._

_When I was a little girl, my mother read me stories, little made up books featuring princesses and princes and rescues and whatnot. Muggle stories, really. They painted a picture of love for me, one that I took into my adolescence. But, they were wrong. Love is delicate, and different, and it involves sharing a part of yourself with someone else, a part of yourself that you never thought you'd have to share. It involves unforeseen conflict, and disgruntled compromise and never-ending understanding. It's not like the books. Love is not a fairytale._

_I do not wish to lie to you any longer. You are my friend, or perhaps now, were my friend. We have gone through more together than I have gone through with anyone else. We have lost family, friends, and so much more by each other's side. I have shared with you my heart, my soul, bare against the world, and you (I believe) have done the same. But, I made a decision today. A heart wrenching decision that I cannot even begin to explain. And more than anything else, I'm sorry you had to be a part of it. I'm sorry I had to drag you into it. I'm sorry I did not tell you the truth outright. I cannot apologize enough._

_I'm sorry you shared your soul with me but, what we have, what we had isn't love. It simply isn't. It's trauma, and pain, and suffering, masked only by the thinnest layer of what we believe could be love. I need space, to heal from my mother, my father, the war. And, although you may not realize it, you do too. _

_But, I hope, one day, you do find it — the real thing. Real love. I know that may mean little to you now but, I do._

_Please don't go looking for me. You have your whole life ahead of you, and I have mine._

_Luna_

The paper hesitated, levitating in the air for only a moment, as if it realized he had finished reading, and refolded itself back into a rose with expert precision. He barely managed to catch it before it hit the ground.

Neville sat on the floor, in the empty apartment for ages. He couldn't be sure how long. The world seemed slower now. The winter light dimmed softly, replaced by the sharp glow of the city, lit up by electric string lights, and tall, leaning street lamps. It was nearly dark by the time he pulled himself off the floor, and stumbled towards the door of the apartment. He gave it only a final glance over before he opened the door — the orange florescent lights pouring in from the hallway — and shut it again.

She had packed his suitcase and left it outside. Completely tidy, only with a tinge of frumpiness around the edges. It had sat in the hallway, waiting for him. Waiting until he was ready. He turned to face the door just in time to see the whole thing disappear into the wall. The wallpaper from the hallway unspooling itself, and springing tightly against the door in expert, magical sheets until he could hardly believe there had been a door there in the first place.

Nothing existed of their nights together. Nothing was left, except his memories, the flower, and the sagging, numbingly painful sensation in his chest. He swallowed, and — gritting his teeth — pulled up the strap of his suitcase up, and dragged it out along the carpeted corridor, out towards the endless, winding streets of New York City, feeling more alone in a city of eight million than he had ever expected to feel.


End file.
